Oil Paintings

Gerrit Beneker

Gerrit Beneker(January 26, 1882 – 23 October 1934)

Style: Realist, Illustrations

Background: Gerrit Albertus Beneker was born on January 26, 1882 . Beneker was an American painter and illustrator best known for his paintings of industrial scenes and for his poster work in World War I.

Education: He first studied at the Chicago Art Institute, where his teachers included John Vanderpoel and Frederick Richardson; later he transferred to the Art Students League in New York.

Achievements: In July 1918, Beneker was hired, under the title of “Expert Aid, Navy Department”, to create posters and illustrations for the war effort. It was in this period that he painted his most familiar work, “Sure We’ll Finish the Job”, which sold over three million copies. Later he spent four years painting workers of the Hydraulic Pressed Steel Company in Cleveland, Ohio as part of a labor-management relations improvement project; similar projects were carried out at the General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York and at the Rohm and Haas plant in Philadelphia.